“Don’t!” Wyndle said. “Mistress, stay hidden. He has eyes you cannot see.”

Fine. She joined the flow of people moving down the steps. This was the shorter route, but there were a lot of people on the bridge. In the bustle, because of her shortness, she lost sight of Darkness.

Sweat prickled on the back of her neck, cold. If she couldn’t see him, she felt certain—irrationally—that he was now watching her. She pictured again and again how he’d emerged from the market to grab the thief, a supernatural ease to his movements. Yes, he knew things about people like Lift. He’d spoken of her powers with familiarity.

Lift drew upon her awesomeness. She didn’t make herself Slick, but she let the light suffuse her, pep her up. The power felt like it was alive sometimes. The essence of eagerness, a spren. It drove her forward as she dodged and squeezed through the crowd of people on the bridge.

She reached the other side of the bridge, and saw no sign of Darkness on the ledge. Storms. She left through the archway on the other side, slipping back into the city proper and entering a large crossroads.

Shiqua-wrapped Tashikkis passed in front of her, interrupted occasionally by Azish in colorful patterns. This was certainly a better part of town. Light from the rising sun sparkled off painted sections of the walls, here displaying a grand mural of Tashi and the Nine binding the world. Some of the people she passed had parshman slaves, their marbled skin black and red. She hadn’t seen many of those here, not as many as in Azir. Maybe she just hadn’t been in rich enough sections of the city.

Lots of the buildings here had small trees or ornamental shrubs in front of them. They were bred and cultivated to be lazy, so their leaves didn’t pull in despite the near crowds.

Read those crowds … Lift thought. The people. Where are the people being strange?

She scrambled through the crossroads, intuiting the way. Something about how people stood, where they looked. There was a ripple here. The waves of a passing fish, silent but not still.

She turned a corner, and caught a brief glimpse of Darkness striding up a set of stairs beside a row of small trees. He stepped into a building, then shut the door.

Lift crept up beside the building Darkness had entered, her face brushing the leaves of the trees, causing them to pull in. They were lazy, but not so stupid that they wouldn’t move if touched.

“What are these ‘eyes’ you say he has?” she asked as Wyndle wound up beside her. “The ones I can’t see.”

“He will have a spren,” Wyndle said. “Like me. It’s likely invisible to you and anyone else but him. Most are, on this side, I think. I don’t remember all the rules.”